November 2003 - Posts

• Sparkle, moderately Slashdotted

  An article posted Monday on Slashdot, led to a minor slashdot effect in the comments section on the WVG page (found at the very bottom). Nothing really new there other than the “why not just use the open standard?” complaints.  I'm thinking that is they would have read some more of the documentation that'd see the WVG is going to allow for a lot more than what SVG can do. In addition , jafro_svg mentioned that Sparkle was really just WVG.  But if I am understanding the currently running rumors, Sparkle will be the Authorware for some aspect of WVG.  I don't know, maybe that was just me who said that... Disclaimer: I am not one who normally enjoys dissecting rumors or public conjecture, but this just seems like a fun topic and I can't find much mention of Sparkle right now, so why not build the buzz with what I do find. Posted Nov 26 2003, 09:55 AM by AdamKinney with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Sparkle, Open Source

• The dynamics of blog commenting, or lack thereof...

  The newly added CommentRSS is actually helpful in tracking comments in my SharpReader. It doesn't appear to be the final solution though.  I still have to track back through the entries in a feed and then remember which one I posted a comment to.  Then I can expand the nodes and see if anyone has made any comments to my comment. So it appears that at this point Blogging communication is two-way for the blogger and one and a half way for the blog commentor.  We can “talk” (by adding comments) but we can't “hear” (find out the rest of the conversation that is embedded in the comment realm of each entry). I know some people have been asking for tools to help with blogging, so this is my request.  A better Commenting/Conversation paradigm. Maybe I should walk over to Scoble's Future of RSS thread and give a suggestion, but then if someone responded to it, how would I know (easily).  This might explain why more people are commenting by adding links to their blog. Any ideas?  Maybe some projects I don't know about already in the works? Posted Nov 25 2003, 11:47 AM by AdamKinney with 5 comment(s) Filed under: Blogging

• Publisher User Group Programs

  I was scanning the Weblogs main feed last night and came upon Julie's post about book donations from publishing companies.  So I quickly sent her an email asking for help in hooking up my local user group and she nicely replied with “Just go to the respective publisher web sites and request to join.” Hmm...yes something so simple it was apparently difficult to concieve.  Thanks Julie :) Moral of the story: If you are a User Group Leader and you have not signed up, don't delay.  Sign up now! Posted Nov 25 2003, 10:32 AM by AdamKinney with no comments Filed under: User Group

• .Net Users of Fort Wayne - looking for speakers

  Following Greg's lead, I thought I'd post up the RFS (Request For Speakers). If you are interested in speaking at a Net User Group, and you know where Fort Wayne is or wish to find out where our humble little city is (ok, its not really that small), then please contact me. We are a general .Net user group, but we have been focusing mainly on ASP.NET. Posted Nov 17 2003, 11:20 AM by AdamKinney with no comments Filed under: NUFW

• Sparkle Yin meets its Yang

  In one opinion, its all over for Sparkle, with the announcement of Macromedia Flex.  In my opinion, competition is good and this way everyone has some new cool vector drawing animation tool to use for their UI.  “OS/hardware/platform independant” can be good, but I rather look forward to creating applications which take full advantage of the system they are running on. In addition to this, please take a glance at MXML.  Look familiar? Posted Nov 17 2003, 09:55 AM by AdamKinney with 5 comment(s) Filed under: Sparkle

• A Managed Open Source Project == Oxymoron?

  Last week, Scott Mitchell posted an entry referencing difficulties when managing an open source project.  So that got me thinking about the whole situation.  I'm wondering if most microsofties here on weblogs.asp.net, have taken part in an open source project, before GotDotNet Workspaces.  The most mature .NET one I learned about before then was SharpVectorGraphics, lead by DonXML. Based on this thought stream and an imminent bowl of Fruit Loops, I have three questions: 1)  I wonder why there are not more project managers in training/college not involved in Open Source Projects.  It seems like some real world experience they could gain and if done well could properly organize a project and move it along towards a complete version.  This person wouldn't be there to code, just to handle the tasks of organizing and communicating.  Maybe the Open Source Movement doesn't lend itself to organization?  Or people are there for fun or casual coding and don't wish to follow assignments(orders)? 2)  Now that there is the new wave of Microsoft aiding open source development, who is actively involved in an Open Source Project?  Not one where you fit into the Creator role, but one where have you joined after the initial push and have been able to contribute a significant amount. 3)  Easy one last; in your opinion, what's the best project to come out of GDN Workspaces? Disclaimer:  I am new to the whole Open Source thing myself, so feel free to “school” me, if you have greater depth in experience than me. Posted Nov 16 2003, 09:03 PM by AdamKinney with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Project Management, Open Source

• Triggers == Bad Performance?

  I was reading the new MSDN Magazine and came upon an article on SQL Triggers written by John Papa.  He does a good job of explaining what they are and how they work.  I would like to bring attention to the second to last paragraph called Performance. I've “heard” and “been told” that triggers are bad for performance.  John does a good job of spelling out when they are “the right tool for the job”.  Following are a few good tips he gave: Triggers are not slow, the logic inside is what causes the perf hit.  (e.g. cursors, multi-table traversal, ..) Try to just work with the dynamic inserted and deleted tables Triggers are compiled Do not return resultsets Keep it simple Sounds good to me.  As long as I don't put too much weight on the backs of the triggers, and try and avoid confusion by having them talk to each other in complex loops; I think I can now use them with a clear conscience and I won't worry about causing my SQL server to die. Posted Nov 14 2003, 02:14 AM by AdamKinney with 6 comment(s) Filed under: SQL

• Microsoft Buys 2D Animation Tools Vendor

  As posted here, Microsoft Buys 2D Animation Tools Vendor Creature House. So yeah, check out the galleries on the Creature House site, especially Patrick Lee's.  Now if I could work on a WinFX app, with drawing tools that allowed work like that to be created, I'd be one happy camper (granted artistic ability is needed, but I think I'd get into more frequent practice if something like that was available) I have to explain that my obsession with Sparkle is due to me dream of being able to create Flash-like animation in a MS/Windows environment.  I've always wanted to combine Flash, DirectX, SVG and Illustrator all together, so now I'm dreaming that is the killer-app I was hoping for. Of course time will tell, but for now I can keep up the hype. Posted Nov 11 2003, 10:35 AM by AdamKinney with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Sparkle

• HellO World!

  My name is Adam Kinney and this is my first blog entry in the thriving community of weblogs.asp.net.  Like most everyone else, I have been loving .NET since it came out, but unlike most of you I started my computer career as a designer.  Hey I'm even certified in Flash 5, woo hoo (An MMCP not MCP...)! I spent most of my time in the .NET community at GotDotNet under the alias QueMark (which then became AdamKinney). I do a lot of ASP.NET and Windows Forms coding and my big interest in this Post-PDC2003 era will be hunting for the elusive Sparkle.  Although I wish I had some more of a defined criteria when searching for content on Feedster.  I keep getting posts like this in my SharpReader... Posted Nov 11 2003, 09:43 AM by AdamKinney with 8 comment(s)